International Congress for Conservation Biology and 4th European Congress for Conservation Biology “Mission Biodiversity: Choosing New Paths for Conservation” Montpellier, France

This conference was attended by 2000 people. The plenary was set up as a debate with Peter Kareiva (USA), chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy and advocate of a ‘New Conservation’ that allies with corporate interests and neoliberal market mechanisms. The two talks were about 20 mins each. Kareiva went first and was followed by Spash Environmental Values in Conservation: Ethics, Economics and Pragmatism (PDF external link, free to download) . The response of the audience was overwhelming in favour of what Spash said with a spontaneous standing ovation from the conference floor. Here is some of what the people said at the time and shortly after, as posted on the conference Tweet site.

Nathalie Pettorelli @PettorelliWhat a fantastic talk by Spash- following Kareiva is hard task, yet Spash’s presentation is splendid, and to the point #ICCB2015
7:14 PM – 3 Aug 2015